This one the jungle can eat, Riley interpreted. She didn't blame them.
The guide and porters snickered.
Weston lit a cigarette and glared out over the dark water. The boat staggered again and then, as they were all desperately trying to gain their footing, it gave a huge lurch. Weston fell forward, hanging up for one heart-stopping moment on the railing. Everyone leapt to help him as he hung precariously, arms down, closer to the water.
Riley caught his belt buckle while Annabel reached over the side to grasp at his arms. The moment Annabel leaned down, arms covering Weston's, the water came to life, boiling like a cauldron, flashing silver with muddy patches of red.
"Mom!" Riley cried, reaching for her mother, still holding Weston. His weight was pulling them all forward.
The others rushed to help as Annabel slipped farther toward the dark, reed-choked water, now boiling with frenzied piranha. There was no blood in the water so the turmoil made no sense. To Riley's horror the fish began to leap out of the water, hundreds of them, narrow bodies and blunt heads shooting from the river like rockets, the triangular-shaped jaws with razor-sharp teeth snapping open and shut with terrible clacking sounds.
Although the stories of piranha frenzies abounded, Riley knew attacks on people were quite rare. She'd swum in the water with them on several occasions. This bizarre behavior was extraordinary, as unnatural and unsettling as the La Manta Blanca attack. And just like with the Manta Blancas, it seemed clear the piranha were bent on reaching her mother, not Don Weston.
It was Jubal who caught Annabel and yanked her back away from the rail, practically throwing her into Gary. Then he caught Weston and hauled him back on deck, too. Instead of being grateful, the engineer slapped at Jubal's hands, cursing and sliding down to sit on the deck, his breath coming in great gasps. He glared at Pedro and the two porters as if the three men had deliberately tried to murder him.
The guide and porters both stared at Annabel with a look that made Riley wish she had a concealed gun close at hand. Before anyone could speak, the boat nearly ran aground, and the two natives turned back to their work. A low branch overhead dipped down, and a snake dropped onto the deck with a thud right at Don Weston's boots.
"No one move," Jubal hissed as the snake stared at the engineer. "That viper's extremely poisonous."
Pedro, the guide, turned back, catching up the machete that was always close. Before he could take a step, the viper did an abrupt spin and launched itself at Riley. She stumbled back into her mother. The snake flashed between her legs heading straight toward her mother. Gary Jansen yanked Annabel off her feet and twisted around, holding her in the air while Jubal shoved Riley aside, yelling at the guide, hand up in the air.
Pedro tossed the machete and in one smooth movement, Jubal slammed the sharpened blade across the neck of the viper, severing the head. There was a moment of silence as Gary lowered Annabel to the deck, holding her steady so that she didn't fall.
"Thank you," Riley breathed softly to both researchers. She didn't try to hide the fact that she was very shaken.
Her mother stared at her with stricken eyes. Riley's world crumbled. Capa, Raul and Pedro looked at her mother with the same look they had on their faces when they'd first seen the viper. They were in real trouble if the guides and porters became hostile toward them. She reached for her mother's hand and held on tightly.
Chapter 2
Nights were hell in the jungle. Right at sunset, the buzzing started. It wasn't as if the insects were silent-they were producing a constant steady drone-but Riley could push the sound away. This was something altogether different-a soft, persistent noise, a low frequency that jangled every nerve in the body. She'd awakened to the strange noise the very first night they entered the rain forest.
Strangely, Riley couldn't identify the low, irritating buzz, nor could she tell if it was outside or inside her head. She'd observed several others-including her mother-rubbing their temples as if their heads ached, and she feared that same low frequency of whispers one couldn't quite catch was invading insidiously, adding to the danger of their travel. During the day the whispers were gone, but the effects lingered.
Her senses, since entering the rain forest, seemed to have blazed to life and were working overtime. She noticed every little suspicious glance toward her mother. Jubal Sanders and Gary Jansen were armed to the teeth and she was very envious of their weapons. The two moved in silence, kept to themselves and watched everyone. She came to the conclusion that they knew a lot more about what was going on than they let on.
Don Weston and his friend Mack Shelton were a pair of idiots as far as she could see. Neither had ever made the trek into a rain forest, and clearly they were afraid of everything. They blustered, complained and bullied the porters and guides when they weren't leering at Riley or feeding the rampant distrust among the travelers.
Ben Charger seemed much more knowledgeable about the rain forest and the tribes occupying it. He'd done extensive research and had come prepared. He didn't like either Weston or Shelton, but had to work with them and clearly wasn't happy about it. He spent a lot of time talking to the guides and porters, asking questions and trying to learn from them. Riley couldn't really fault him for anything. Perhaps she was just nervous about everyone at this point.
The archaeologist and his students were very excited and seemed completely oblivious to the tension running through the camp, although she noticed they were uneasy at night, sitting close to the fire. They seemed driven, amicable and very focused on their mission. Dr. Henry Patton and his two students, Todd Dillon and Marty Shepherd, were more excited about the ruins they'd heard about than interested in whether or not a woman in their company was bringing bad luck to the travelers. They seemed young and naive, even the professor, who was in his late fifties. His entire world revolved around academia.
Riley felt a little sorry for all three archaeologists, that they were so clueless, and more grateful than ever that she'd chosen to concentrate her studies on modern languages rather than dead ones. She enjoyed traveling, talking with people and living life too much to be locked in an ivory tower, poring over dusty tomes. Of course, she'd studied ancient languages as well, but primarily as a window to the evolution of languages and their impact on various cultures.
Riley glanced toward Raul and Capa, the two porters who had shared the boat with them coming upriver. She didn't like the way they whispered and sent surreptitious glances toward Annabel's sleeping hammock. Maybe that terrible buzzing in her head was making her as paranoid as everyone else, but in any case, there was no sleeping. She didn't just have to worry about the men in her camp; the insects and bats and every other night creature seemed to stalk her mother as well.
She'd gone four nights without sleep, watching over her mother, and it was beginning to show, fraying her nerves so that she found it nearly impossible to tolerate Weston's snide, leering presence. She didn't want to add to the problems by being ugly to him, but she was definitely at that point. The fire blazed bright. Just outside the ring of fire, a jaguar coughed. He seemed to follow them, yet when the guides went out to check in the morning, they couldn't find tracks. It was impossible not to be affected by that sawing, grunting cough.
She could hear the slow fluttering of wings over Annabel's head. Vampire bats landed in the trees, brushing the leaves and filling the branches until the tree groaned, trying to support the weight of so many. Riley swallowed hard and slowly turned her head toward the leaping fire. The porters and guides stared at the tree filled with hanging bats. The creatures had gone from interesting to sinister in a matter of seconds for the fourth night in a row.
Pedro, the guide, and Raul and Capa, the two porters from her boat, moved a little into the shadows. All three gripped their machetes. The looks on their faces as the flickering flames revealed their expressions frightened her. For one heart-stopping moment, the men seemed every bit as threatening as the bats. Riley sat up slowly. She'd left her boots on, knowing she'd be protecting her mother.
Annabel slept restlessly, groaning at times. Her mother had always had acute hearing, even in her sleep. A cat walking across the floor would wake her, but since entering the rain forest, she seemed exhausted and weak. At night she twisted and turned in her hammock, sometimes weeping softly, pressing her hands to her head. Even when the bats dropped to earth and surrounded her, using their wings to propel them through the thick vegetation, Annabel never opened her eyes.
Riley had prepared her defenses carefully, using torches she could easily light, even going so far as to build a small circular fire wall around her mother's sleeping area. As she unhooked her netting, she caught sight of Raul creeping toward her. He was staying low and to the shadows, but she could make him out, sliding from one dark place to another, stalking prey. Riley glanced over at her sleeping mother. She feared Annabel was the porter's intended prey.
Heart pounding, tasting fear in her mouth, Riley slipped from her hammock and drew her knife. Going up against a machete, especially one wielded by a man who used one on a regular basis, was insane, but he was going to have to go through her to get to her mother, just as the vampire bats would have to do. And it wouldn't just be her knife, if he came at her mother. Riley picked up a torch and held it to the low fire she'd prepared earlier as a defense against the bats.
She would kill him if she had to. The idea made her sick, but she steeled herself, going through each move in her head. Practicing. Bile rose, but she was determined. No one-nothing-would harm her mother. She'd made up her mind, and nothing would stop her, not even the idea that what she was about to do might be considered premeditated murder.